Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying

Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying

If you’ve had the delight of meeting me in the past month, you will notice something very different about my state of mind and body. As far as my mindset goes, I am more unwavering then ever to pursue my life long goals and as far as my physical attributes goes, I have dropped about 20 pounds since march and also have brand new tattoo across my chest that stretches to both my shoulders. So if you saw just 6 months ago, I may look different to you and my thought process is very different in a positive way.

“Get Busy Living OR Get Busy Dying”……My version

This beautiful quote that I have taken a liking to came from the movie “Shawshank Redemption” starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. It is also one of my much loved movies of all time. If you haven’t seen it, you have to be one of the most unlucky people on the planet, because it is truly an influential film that stretches the imagination and heart. To sum it up, Tim Robbins character Andy Dufrain was charged with murdering his wife and her secret lover. He was naively framed and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He makes friends with Morgan Freeman’s character Red and they become best friends the whole time he was in prison. Year’s later while he was in prison, Andy received some invaluable information that could get him out of prison and he went to the warden about it. The warden, who Andy was working for while in prison refused to hear the case or the story, because he didn’t want to loose him. Andy, very disturbed, became irate and ended up being sent to the hole for a couple months. When he finally got out of the hole, he was miserable and stuck between living and giving up. He had a hearted discussion with Red and told him that he had to get out of prison. Knowing that he was guiltless of the crime, 20 years was enough for him in prison and he decided that you can do either two things in life, “Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying”. He broke out of prison and fled to Mexico.

Just a truly influential movie, that got me thinking about my own life in that manner.

2009 has been somewhat of a good but puzzling year for me. After all, my New Year resolution was to just spend a vacation on a tropical island alone and slim down physically for my opportunity to get into acting and television. I slimmed down tremendously, but have yet gone anywhere to clear my head and soak up some sun. I haven’t traveled anywhere this year, which is a first and the summer has been average with me spending most of the time up in Minneapolis visiting my childhood friend. So I can say it has been a simple 2009 with little advancement in life. I have to say, I really wasted the past few years of my life by avoiding things I should be doing the most.

At the tender age of 28, I have a large amount of memories to smile about, but yet I find myself displeased with where I’m at in my life. For almost anyone else I know, if they had the privilege to experience things I have done since graduating college (2004), they would be thrilled. I have enjoyed time living in Greece, a third world country in Malaysia and soaked up sun in Australia for ten months. I worked as a party promoter in Las Vegas and enjoyed neighbors like Kevin Federline and Paris Hilton while living with friends in Los Angeles. Some people would take pleasure in telling these stories, but I am not pleased with where I am at in life.

I had an impressive basketball career in high school, college and internationally, but after my knee injury in college, basketball was really a job instead of a passion. I spent the last three years, working with children wherever I’ve lived and it has been rewarding in a way, but I never looked at it as a profession. My capability to possess a childlike energy, keeps me having fun in life, but doesn’t keep me satisfied with where my life is at.

So that is why I have determined that I can do two things in life and those are, “Get Busy Living OR Get Busy Dying”.

I chose, Get Busy Living, because I was never the person to give up on anything in life, I am too obstinate. I have been fortunate and skilled enough to have succeeded in everything I have tried. I have always understood the hard working family I came from and how hard some people I know worked to get where they were. I witnessed my mother walk three miles in the freezing snow, when her car broke down to go to work. I have seen friends of mine work three jobs with no free time, just so they can pay tuition for school. I felt the love of my grandmother when she gave me money she didn’t have, just so I could have something to spend when I was broke in college. These people are the idols of my life, not any celebrities. Real life people that I have seen work hard and not whine about anything. They chose to live……

The one thing that has dissatisfied me the most, is letting the talent I have waste away. In college, I was an All-American basketball player that got by off talent alone. I gained weight and never really trained as hard as I could have, but still was able to be better than 98 percent of the people I played with and against. After college I didn’t want to pursue a professional career in basketball, because I never had the same affection for it anymore, so I played only a couple years overseas. As far as education goes, I graduated with two degrees from my university, but never thought about using my degrees until later in life. I received one degree in Public Relations which was a pointless degree and another in Acting & Film.

Acting, which is the thing I want to do more than anything has been put off many times for nothing. I’ve had call backs for auditions and movie roles, but never took them serious. I’m sure I have pissed off a few casting directors and agents who had faith in me. Everyone I know in LA wants to be an actor or musician and most of them will sadly never make it. The odds of becoming of a working actor in Hollywood or a Musician have to be one in a billion. I never looked at it as a hard career choice, because it was never a dream of mine to be a movie star, it has always just been a talent of mine since I was nine years old acting in plays. I have always felt I was better in performing arts, than I was in sports and that’s saying a lot. Ever since I was around sixteen, I always said I would move out to California and pursue acting, but the whole time I have been out here in California, it’s been about the partying and bullshit. I let myself get consumed by my lust’s instead of my task to succeed. I don’t regret anything, but I am disappointed, because there is not a single reason on this planet why I am not acting or why I am not a successful person to my liking. Not one reason and it is a shame that I have let my talent and opportunities go to waste for nothing.

So that is why I have chose to, “Get Busy Living” instead of “Get Busy Dying, because I know that my life didn’t stop at bouncing a ball and it didn’t stop at clubs, girls and the pursuit of shallow dollars. I have “Get Busy Living OR Get Busy Dying” tattooed across my chest to remind me everyday, to never let myself down again….